Community Meeting, C-17 Rally and Parking Tickets

What an interesting week.

We had a council meeting but the budget hearing that would have allowed the city council to start taking public action on the budget was canceled.

A community meeting at the El Dorado Senior Center with 80 people who came to talk about the budget and proposed cuts to police and fire services. People are not happy. And they want something done with the high costs of public pensions. Unfortunately, we can't address that problem in the next four weeks we have to pass the budget. But we will bring it forward and engage the public and the unions so we can make changes in the next budget.

Today, I attended a rally at Boeing to encourage Congress to fund 15 C-17's. Also there were Congressmembers Laura Richardson and Ed Royce, Supervisor Don Knabe, the Mayor of Los Alamitos, Troy Edgar. We all spoke about the importance of keeping over 5,000 jobs in Long Beach and the significance of the C-17 in military and commercial operations as an excellent cargo plane. CBS news was there. Please send letters to Senators Boxer and Feinstein because the funding for 15 planes needs their support.

Parking tickets. I once in a while get a letter or email from a resident who has received a parking ticket and wants me to get involved and get the ticket waived. As I explain, it is not appropriate for a councilmember to use their office to interfere with tickets. I am sure that doesn't make anyone happy. But the other day, I received an email from a young man who received a parking ticket downtown out front of the military recruiting center where he had gone inside to sign up for the military. When he came out the parking enforcement person was writing the ticket for an expired meter -- which was the right thing to do. He explained he had been inside signing up to serve his country and should be given some slack. But he was given the ticket -- as he should have been. I told him to send me the parking ticket and I would pay it. Which I did. It was least thing I could do.

Take poll on Saving Station 18

See www.savestation18.com and take the poll to let the Mayor and City Council know if you agree that Fire Station 18 on Palo Verde and Wardlow should be closed.

Someone cancels scheduled budget meeting last night without council approval

Readers -- remember back just a month ago when the Council voted 8-0 to approve a schedule of public budget workshops?

Come on, it wasn't that long ago.

Just click on this magic link and you too can read once again how the City Council (I was there and voting) approved a budget workshop schedule that included a workshop August 18th at 7:00 pm. http://longbeach.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=429644&GUID=73371C4F-6E0C-4DF9-9B0C-6BFEDEF4D940&Search=&Options=

I sat and watched an audience filled with city staff as 7 pm came and went but no budget meeting.

So who canceled the budget workshop scheduled by the city council? I am trying to find out and so should you.

Listen to TESLA President Tell About The Poor Treatment He and His Company Have Received

I invite readers to log onto the following link http://www.lbreport.com/news/aug09/tesla3.htm and to listen to a taped interview Bill Pearl did with TESLA Motors President after the Mayor and City management denied my reports that their treatment of this possible source of over 1,000 jobs has been less than stellar.

After my blog last week and the news article in local press, a memo was hurriedly released at City Hall allegedly showing all the wonderful things the city had done to try to recruit companies to Long Beach. The trouble is the memo trashes TESLA (which the President of the company found insulting and inaccurate)and basically provides nothing to refute the claim of TESLA that they are and have been treated "like second class citizens." The ONLY letter the city sent to TESLA was telling them about a potential E-Vehicle Mall. No thank you for being interested in bringing jobs; no follow-up confirming the so-called high level meetings; no detailed explanation (as had been sent to other companies) about tax credits and other opportunities for their business if they re-located to Long Beach.

I didn't start a "spat" as the local press termed it. Nor was I "grandstanding". I was simply following up with the fact that the Mayor and City Manager handed out a budget document and showed it on the screen for viewers that stated TESLA Motors was a potential source of revenue for the FY 2010 budget.

I met with the City Manager immediately after and asked what had been done to get them there and was told staff had decided a movie studio would be better and they had told Boeing that fact. I called the TESLA President because I am concerned that should the movie studio not happen, we could have an electric vehicle manufacturer/assembler -- and I didn't want us losing both.

Sadly, what I found out and what you can hear for yourself in the taped interview with Elon Musk, President of TESLA Motors, is that he is still waiting to hear that someone besides me wants his company in Long Beach.

TESLA President Says He Has Been Treated As a "Second-Class Citizen" by City

All the sound and fury coming from the 14th Floor of City Hall doesn't negate the fact that at a time cuts in fire and police services are being proposed by the Mayor and City Manager, the President of TESLA Motors, a company that can bring 1,000 jobs to this City states that he and his company have been treated by these same folks as a "second-class citizen."

Remember when recently the public and local media demanded to know why Jet Blue disclosed it was unhappy with the City of Long Beach? Well, just like the Jet Blue issue, the issue about what the City has or has not been doing to encourage business to come to the vacant Boeing hangers across from Douglas Park and to bring jobs is not a "private matter" as the Mayor would like to make it out to be. Nor is it just a matter between Boeing and TESLA anymore than the continuance of the C-17 plane a matter just between Congress and Boeing -- otherwise why did the City spend so much money in lobbyist fees to help Boeing on that issue?

The Mayor and City Manager made it a "public matter" when they included TESLA Motors and Long Beach Studios in the FY 2010 budget ( the same budget that proposes cutting fire and police) as potential sources of revenue that will help the City reduce its deficit. The public is entitled to learn what the Mayor and city staff are doing or not doing to make sure those sources of revenue are real.

So I stand by the facts of my conversation with Elon Musk, President of TESLA Motors last week:

· TESLA President Musk stated (and wrote to me in an e-mail) that he feels TESLA has been treated as a "second-class" citizen by the City of Long Beach;

· TESLA has been trying to relocate to Long Beach on the Boeing property (not Douglas Park but across the way in the large hangers) and to bring 1,000 jobs to the City; and

· TESLA Motors recently received a $465 million dollar loan from the US Department of Energy to build its electric vehicle and has been attempting to talk with the Mayor and the City Manager but calls have not been returned because city staff have made it clear that the Mayor wants a movie studio. Well, so do I, but we are now in danger of not having either business . No discussion has taken place about having both businesses on the property.

Ironically, last Friday, the Mayor and the City rolled out the "red-carpet" for a Korean company that also makes electric vehicles to encourage them to bring 400 jobs . (To date, that same "red-carpet" has not been rolled out to TESLA even though city officials know that other cities, like Pomona, are actively courting the company and recently hosted a visit by the cross-America TESLA roadster.)

City council members are asked by City staff to come and meet potential businesses that want to re-locate to the Boeing property and to personally encourage them to be here. That's why I talk with Boeing Realty almost weekly, meet with New Castle Partners who are trying to develop Douglas Park and have met with the people behind the movie studio and have spoken with the President of TESLA. I want to do everything possible to bring jobs to Long Beach including letting the public know why we may lose them.

Queen Mary Listed As Over-Rated Tourist Attraction..

Yahoo Travel has an article on line about the "Most Over-Rated Tourist Attractions" -- unfortunately they included the Queen Mary...http://travel.yahoo.com/p-interests-29489009;_ylc=X3oDMTE1dDB2bmFrBF9TAzI3MTYxNDkEX3MDMjcxOTQ4MQRzZWMDZnAtdG9kYXltb2Q-

U.S.'s Most Over-Rated Tourist Attractions

By Andrew Harper......

RMS Queen Mary

Long Beach, Calif.

What do you get when you cross a Ramada Inn with a rusty old ship? The RMS Queen Mary, the once-proud jewel of the Cunard Line, which now lies permanently docked in Long Beach as a hotel, convention center and floating haunted house (paranormal tours are available). They should have given poor old Mary an honorable burial at sea.

That area of Long Beach is such prime property that with the right development and vision could be a major economic engine for Long Beach...